Teacher strikes

[K198]

My thread is not to discuss the rights or wrongs of teacher strike action, but as to why as parents we can be fined for taking our kids out of school. Yet my child will have missed 7 days on schooling this year due to strikes. Somehow doesn’t seem fair.

Teachers don’t fine - it’s the government that fine. The strikes and fines for non attendance are completely unrelated.
Everyone is entitled to strike.

In my opinion fines for attendance are disgusting and so far from effective at sorting significant attendance issues.

I don’t really see the link with strikes. I think all workers should strike if they feel they need to. Overall better conditions for teachers will lead to better education for children.

I get more annoyed by children with disabilities being out of school for a long time because the LA can’t identify anywhere/way to meet their needs. That seems much more hypocritical to me.

Teachers strike to negotiate for better working conditions and funding for schools. Local authorities/government fine individual parents who take their children out of school to try and discourage that specific child not attending school. Two different reasons and two different people/groups making the decisions

These are completely unrelated issues. You are either goady or not very well informed.

If the latter, there are plenty of threads you could read to find out why teachers are striking.

@K198
Do you think they're getting paid on strike days?

If your post is not to discuss the rights and wrongs of teachers strikes, why did you call it that?

If you are asking whether the government should fine parents for their kids missing school, that's a different issue.

Teachers don't fine. It's the government that do that. Teachers don't care of students have a week's holiday

Do you realise that teachers don't get the local authority imposed fines as bonuses in their pay cheques?

Try that in private sector. You will be redundant when the first opportunity comes. So not really everybody. Only the strong groups represented by Unions. Mostly in public sector

That's not the public sectors fault or the fault of those in unions. If the private sector wanted to, they could unionise too but they won't.

I don't understand why you gave your thread that title tbh. I really don't think you'll find much sympathy on this on here. By an large parents are supportive of strikes now as they're finally seeing the effects of no money on their kids.
As for fines for attendance, you accepted to send your child to school, you need to abide by those rules. Just like the government has to abide by the rule that people have the right to industrial action.

You can't possibly think that teachers are fining the children? Apart from the fact the involve school and money the issues have nothing to do with each other whatsoever.

Don't worry, there won't be any teachers soon. Your children will be online with a laptop and then you can go on holiday when you like. Something to look forward to for you there.

That is a rather naive thing to write

Which part?

Not comparable. Fines are there to encourage continuity of education and to make sure pupils keep up. If you take your child out for a holiday they fall behind the rest of the class, and teachers may have to spend precious time catching them up which would be disruptive if everyone did it.

If it’s a strike day, teaching is withheld so no one falls behind.

On a personal level I don’t agree with fines if a parent can demonstrate they are maintaining the child’s education and making sure they don’t fall behind. Family time and experiences are important too. Also, like some other posters have said there might be underlying reasons for absences that need addressing rather than just applying fines.

Because weirdly it's. It's not us teachers fining you parents and that money doesn't go in to our pockets.

And because striking is a well established way of making governments take note when terms and conditions aren't working for the workforce: its short term pain in terms of your child's education, for their long term gain. If schools go on as they currently are your kids, my kids and kids yet to come are fucked.

Anyone seen any press coverage of the strike today? I work in education and completely understand the reasons behind the strike and find it astounding that 10,000's of children missing education today isn't a news story.

Taking your child out of school (that the tax payers pay for) for a holiday means your child misses out on a day/week of education that all the other students are getting so they will be behind / need help catching up on their return.

Teachers striking for better pay and conditions (so you child doesn't have to have an ever changing set of supply teachers) means no one is getting an education that day, so all the students stay at the same level, and then teaching can continue as normal next lesson.